Eric Nilsen
Optometrist · Richmond, VANPI 1558307710
Payments from drug & device makers
What this record shows
This record is dominated by education: $7,500 of the $10,837 with a category attached, or 69.2%. Coopervision Inc. accounts for 74.7% of it on its own, with 8 other manufacturers making up the rest. 2025 is the largest year on record at $7,952, more than ten times the $409 reported in 2019. Among optometrist clinicians in VA with any reported payments, this total sits in the top 5% — high for the specialty, which is a reason to read the composition above rather than the number alone.
Across 76 payments — averaging $142.60 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Coopervision Inc.$8K
- Bausch & Lomb Americas Inc.$1K
- Alcon$830
- Bausch & Lomb, A Division Of Bausch Health US, LLC$416
- LKC Technologies, Inc.$151
- ABB Con-cise Optical Group LLC$135
- plus $199 from 3 others
What the payments were for
- Food & beverage$3,33731%
- Education$7,50069%
General payments by program year
Who reported the general payments
Companies are grouped under their corporate parent — a single manufacturer often files under several CMS reporting entities. Research and ownership payments are counted separately and are not in this table.
| Company | Payments | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Coopervision Inc. | 17 | $8,094 |
| Bausch & Lomb Americas Inc. | 20 | $1,013 |
| Alcon | 19 | $830 |
| Bausch & Lomb, A Division Of Bausch Health US, LLC | 13 | $416 |
| LKC Technologies, Inc. | 1 | $151 |
| ABB Con-cise Optical Group LLC | 3 | $135 |
| Carl Zeiss Meditec USA, Inc. | 1 | $106 |
| Optos, Inc. | 1 | $78 |
| Lombart Brothers, Inc. | 1 | $15 |
What the payments were tied to
Products named in the reported payments. Only payments of $100 or more are attributed here — the typical reported payment nationally is a meal worth about $16, and listing those product-by-product would be noise.
- MyDay Contact Lens$7,500
- TOTAL30$302
- INFUSE$121
- SPECTACLE LENSES$107
- Contact Lens$107
- CLARUS 500$106
How this compares
$10,837 in reported general payments places this provider in the 95th percentile of 1,230 optometrist providers in Virginia.
Medicare billing
What this is not: this is the amount Original Medicare Part B allowed for services this provider billed in 2024. It is not their income. It excludes Medicare Advantage — now more than half of all Medicare enrollment — along with Medicaid and all commercial insurance, and it is gross practice revenue before staff, rent, supplies and malpractice premiums. CMS also suppresses any figure covering ten or fewer patients, so low-volume providers appear smaller than they are.
Most prescribed under Part D
| Drug | Claims | Cost to plans & patients |
|---|---|---|
| Latanoprost | 42 | $283 |
| Timolol Maleate | 22 | $113 |
| Brimonidine Tartrate | 14 | $43 |
Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.
Other optometrist in Richmond
- Jacqueline TheisRichmond$80K
- Joseph AllenRichmond$75K
- Jeffrey FardinkRichmond$23K
- Raquel MoncrieffeRichmond$18K
- Gerald NeidighRichmond$15K
- Kristine Hue vanRichmond$8K
- Charline AnselmeRichmond$6K
- Walter WhitleyNorfolk$546K
- Keith SmithsonReston$74K
- Michael SwattsChesapeake$59K
Where these figures come from
- Payments: CMS Open Payments, program years 2019–2025 (publication P06302026_06032026).
- Billing: Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners, data year 2024. Original Medicare Part B only.
- Identity: NPPES NPI Registry, July 2026.